Hurray -- tonight's Nighthawks Night again. I look forward to those Monday and Tuesday night EarthCam broadcasts live from NYC. The picture is great and the sound, considering it is only coming through one mic, is actually good, especially after I put it on CD. I don't exactly know why that is, but the sound off my CD's is broader and more balanced than the live input -- I play both through the same sound system.
Because of the one-mic setup at Charley O's, piano and violin/banjo/guitar are weak, but still audible.
I record the whole evening, then to make the CD, I cut out all of Sol Yaged and all Dixieland jamming, and leave in all of Vince's comments and all of the arranged band numbers, and I have perfect 80-minute CD's. The arranged band and Vince's stuff are great. The solos in the arranged numbers are tops. The music is lively, exciting, accurate, realistic. The audience response and interaction perfect. The way the band sight-reads some of the charts he hands out and says, "Let's try this one" knocks me out.
But then there's old Sol Yaged, who's been sitting down there at the end by Dan Levinson, noodling endlessly on his clarinet (even during intermission). What's that all about? Yeah, I know all about Sol Yaged and his lifelong worship of BG --- have seen him at the Metropole with Roy Eldridge and other great veterans -- and have a recording of him with Jack Teagarden. Appreciate that he contributed somewhat to the BENNY GOODMAN STORY, which Benny laughingly said was the worst movie he had ever seen. So why is Sol there, burning up valuable air time? Does he own a controlling interest in Charley O's? Is he a favored father-in-law?
Bob Newman